The only iron law here is the one too obvious to write a book about, which is that the digital age has so transformed the ways in which things are made and sold that there are no iron laws

The videos on Youtube, magazine articles, newspapers reports, anything that used to be analog that now is digital have a perceived value that is based on their legacy delivery.

The music is often free, but it is NEVER freely distributed.

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1. Obama has pledged to create a cabinet-level Chief Technology Officer for the country.

Right after the 2004 election, a California college student started a website called sorryeverybody.com, "an apology to the world for the reelection of George W. Bush." He invited Americans to submit photos with messages to the world, and thousands did. In one photo, a man holds up a handwritten note: "Sorry World (We Tried). -- Half of America." Another note reads, "I'm Sorry World, I Miss You So Much." A third promises, "Dear World, It'll Get Better."

No, Obama won't bring peace to Iraq and withdraw U.S. troops in his first month in office, or end Arab-Israeli tensions by March. He won't miraculously persuade Iran to switch from nuclear technologies to solar energy, or persuade Osama bin Laden to give up terrorism and open up a chain of florist shops instead.

From 52 to 48, we can work it out. Together.

In this case conventional wisdom is not just wrong but comically so. [Fred] Thompson will win the Republican nomination for two reasons. First, he's a very impressive candidate. Second, there's no realistic alternative. He will win the general election for the same two reasons.

And as much as some might scoff at the deleterious effects of Idol on our culture, it has created a culture of voting among our young people. Where past generations of youth might have felt cynically about their ability to affect change, the millions of Idol voters can see the palpable impact of their vote -- live in prime time and with Ryan Seacrest as their Walter Cronkite.

I am the dreaded swing voter. So you can imagine my surprise when my wife suggested we spend a Saturday morning canvassing for Obama. I have never canvassed for any candidate. But I did, of course, what most middle-aged married men do: what I was told.

Some baseball agents already are thinking about trying to beat a possible tax increase for their well-paid clients under an Obama administration.

But it was already on the record that, after a cool reception from fellow legislators in 1997, when he first took his seat in the Illinois state senate, Obama won over colleagues of all parties with his charm and expertise at the green baize.

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And if you're an Obama fan — eager to give Barack the benefit of the doubt, and proud and excited about the change you've helped bring the nation — do you really want Jon Stewart sitting on the sidelines, taking potshots at your hero?

The chuckles produced during the George W. Bush era by a veritable legion of satirists and comedians, ranging from Fey to Jon Stewart to Chris Rock, have been particularly therapeutic. Unfunny times demand the tonic of humorous distraction.

What An Amazing Accomplishment
It's September 12, 2001. You're sitting in front of a TV, watching footage of the World Trade Center collapse over and over and over again. All of a sudden, someone from seven years in the future walks out of a tiny temporal vortex, and tells you: George W. Bush is going to fuck this up so badly that in 2008, the United States of America will likely elect as president a black man whose middle name is Hussein and whose father was Muslim. Oh, and he also admits he's used cocaine. I think it would have been easier to convince me of the reality of time travel. "No, no, I believe you really are from the future. But the other stuff, that's CRAZY."

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1. Don't personally congratulate all your black friends.
2. Don't declare that you 'never thought you'd see the day.'
3. Don't start crossing the street in order to walk next to a black person.
4. Don't name drop 'Dr. King.'
5. Don't use the phrase 'white people' in any way that suggests it doesn't include you.

1. No Negro spirituals or quotes from Dr. King.
2. Don't go up to every 'redneck-y' looking person and gloat.
3. Don't corner your white coworkers to give them a tutorial on black culture.
4. Don't go to your local DMV, post office or other government office and try to jump the line, talkin' 'bout, 'Barack's got my back.'
5. Do not promise to name your first child after Barack Obama.

The exit of the Bush administration, some have argued, will dwindle comedic fodder. But Tuesday night's show ended with Stewart rallying his correspondents and Colbert that their jobs would continue.

If you're like most people, you're still in shock. THIS IS NOT THE SAME THING AS HAVING YOUR MIND BLOWN.

But the inability of 'Saturday Night Live' to produce one hilarious sketch on the Obamas has little to do with the quality of comedic material Michelle or Barack offer. It has more to do with the fact that mainstream American comedy has been, for far too long, racially segregated and has relied on two formulas in dealing with black people: one is racial stereotyping and the second is black invisibility.

'We comics unleash,' he says. 'There won't be too many things left unsaid. If he messes up, we won't leave any meat on the bone. Truthfully, for comics, it would have been better if [John] McCain won. The worst choice is always better for us.'

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This is what qualifies as a tough question on the campaign trail. The press performance in this election year would ultimately prove to be the worst of all time by miles and miles. Example: After thousands of reporters sat around for months on end listening first to Hillary's and then John McCain's people blather on about Obama's connection to former Weather Underground member Bill Ayers, it would take David Letterman — David Letterman! — to challenge either candidate on the matter. "Are they driving cross-country?" Letterman asked, after finally having gotten McCain to squirm about his own relationship with equivalent extremist G. Gordon Liddy.

Objectivity is a fallacy. In campaign reporting more than any other kind of press coverage, reporters aren’t just covering a story, they’re a part of it—influencing outcomes, setting expectations, framing candidates—and despite what they tell themselves, it’s impossible to both be a part of the action and report on it objectively. In some cases, you genuinely like the candidate you’re covering and you root for him, because over the long haul you come to see him as a human being. For a long time, this was John McCain’s ace in the hole with the press, whom he referred to as “my base.”

If anything, grateful reporters should have rewarded Biden's wide-open style (not to mention his generous access), right? Wrong. Throughout the fall campaign, the press relentlessly painted Biden as a buffoon and a goof. Rather than reward Biden for being open and honest with voters, the press punished him for weeks on end.

It's been quite a season for "TheView," a show that went from yappy, irrelevant punch line to must-see TV (even if your "TV" happens to resemble a computer). As has been eloquently pointed out by my colleague Rebecca Traister, "These ladies are a regular 'McNeil-Lehrer NewsHour' for the late-morning set, with [Elisabeth] Hasselbeck as the benighted Republican bugaboo." It's been nothing less than thrilling to watch the electricity of their political arguments, which mirror the country's water-cooler conversation without the smug and easy vilifying made possible by sharing a conversation with people who think exactly the same as you do.

[Elizabeth] was uncharacteristically gracious and respectful of Barack Obama.

Term: Maverick. I've forgotten what it means.

The questions Berman was shown asking the candidates during halftime of ESPN's Monday Night Football fell short of being softballs -- they were more like silly putty.

This has been—filled with highs and, I could say any number, but I think, seeing Barack Obama last night in Virginia, the capital of the Old South, in front of nearly 100,000 people in one of his final campaign rallies, was sort of the great conclusion to everything we’ve done. One of the goals was to go where Democrats hadn’t gone before, to reach out to people that Democrats hadn’t reached out to before, and there we were actually having accomplished that fact, regardless of what the outcome is.

Reached on a long-planned vacation outside the country, former McCain campaign chief strategist Steve Schmidt was in the middle of letting go.

I think the environment, the biggest challenge in the environment was the bailout… and the right track number, on top of a president with very low approval ratings and a shitty economy, that’s a pretty bad environment.

I think there was media bias in favor of Hillary Clinton, and here's why. It was virtually mathematically impossible for her to be nominated from late March on, and the media continued to pretend that there was an active campaign. And the reason is it serves the interests of the media to have the campaign go on longer.

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In fact, I think it’s possible that an Obama election could have a longer-term impact in boosting global markets’ confidence in the U.S., even if it’s also possible that American investors would be happier with McCain.

But back to the matter at hand: what does Obama’s win portend for the market? We live in interesting times, so it’s unlikely the averages really count this time around, but an average is an average, so we might as well take a look. And the news is good: in post-election years, the market tends to rise 6.2 percent if a Democrat has won the election, and just 4.0 percent if a Republican has won. Something to be thankful for.

This unprecedented munificence (for a political campaign) was likely made possible by the astounding amount of money Mr Obama raised in the home stretch of the campaign. (And it stands in stark contrast to Hillary Clinton's primary campaign, which ended up millions of dollars in debt.) No doubt the president-elect's actions will rub some donors the wrong way—especially those who responded to the campaign's pleas for cash the weekend before the election—but others may find it a clever move.

Even without corporate cash, the Obama fundraising machine has been a force. Nearly half of the record $639 million that his campaign raised during the primaries and general election came in the form of donations of $200 or less. As of mid-October, the Obama campaign had spent about $594 million.

Experts on economic development have long noted what they sometimes call the “oil curse.” Countries with huge oil reserves become economically wealthy but democratically impoverished, because the government can fund itself without taxing the middle class. As a result, the middle class demands less accountability from government because, heck, they didn’t pay for it. (No taxation, no representation.) In the process, the people become subjects rather than citizens.

For the Republicans in the suite, resignation had taken root weeks, if not months, earlier, and had grown into a kind of worldly indifference, grounded in the half-sincere belief that our new President, be it Obama or McCain, would be no match for the havoc in the financial markets and the spiraling economic mess.

Here’s a look at the worst-case scenario for marketers under Obama. The caveat: It is unlikely that all of these things will happen; the Iraq war and healthcare are higher priorities for the new president. But these are the issues that will likely be debated over the next few years.

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Obama is what I have called a "bargainer" -- a black who says to whites, "I will never presume that you are racist if you will not hold my race against me." Whites become enthralled with bargainers out of gratitude for the presumption of innocence they offer. Bargainers relieve their anxiety about being white and, for this gift of trust, bargainers are often rewarded with a kind of halo.

Racism, it is true, did not confound the choice, as some predicted it would. But racism has not confounded mainstream admiration for The Cosby Show or Oprah or Tiger Woods--and hasn't for some time. Most of the 46% who voted for John McCain feel deeply anxious about a world in transition, where erudition, open-mindedness and intellectual discipline matter more and more, and their own sheer willingness to labor hard matters less and less. I bet they are more skittish about Obama's supremely elegant mind, his worldliness, than his dark skin; more drawn to the repudiation of 'elitism' than to the rejection of 'welfare.’

Tears flowed, not only for Obama's historic achievement, but because many were happily discovering that perhaps they had underestimated possibility in America.

While Mr. Obama lost among white voters, as most modern Democrats do, his success is due in part to the fact that he also muted any politics of racial grievance. We have had in recent years two black Secretaries of State, black CEOs of our largest corporations, black Governors and Generals -- and now we will have a President. One promise of his victory is that perhaps we can put to rest the myth of racism as a barrier to achievement in this splendid country. Mr. Obama has a special obligation to help do so.

And yet Obama embarked on a long, exhausting quest for the Democratic nomination, determined to avoid making race a singular theme of his day-to-day campaigning. His issues were Iraq, the economy, health care, the environment—issues with no identity attached.

They believe that their proximity to the president-elect will burnish their reputations, much in the way that white elites always have leveraged connections in business and politics

But I think we can assume that from now on there won’t be any perceived disadvantage to candidates of Italian, French, Asian, or other previous genealogies not previously seen in the White House. For that, congratulations to Barack Obama.

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State Department. Do not appoint Bill Richardson
Also, do not appoint John Kerry.
Also, do not appoint Anthony Lake.
Supreme Court. Do not appoint Hillary Clinton.
Treasury Department. Do not appoint former Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin. Lawrence Summers.
Energy Department. Do not appoint Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Environmental Protection Agency or Interior Department. Do not hire Robert Kennedy Jr. H
Defense Department. Do not reappoint Robert Gates.
Attorney General. Do not appoint Jamie Gorelick.
Vice President. Not Joe Biden.

Obama will need to bear all of this in mind in the years ahead as he comes under pressure from some factions of the Democratic Party hoping to translate his mandate into a Rooseveltian expansion of government. Such an expansion would severely undermine America's ability to compete in the global marketplace, and the impressive coalition that he has put together would not last his administration.

Mr. Obama inherits a terrible legacy. The nation is embroiled in two wars — one of necessity in Afghanistan and one of folly in Iraq. Mr. Obama’s challenge will be to manage an orderly withdrawal from Iraq without igniting new conflicts so the Pentagon can focus its resources on the real front in the war on terror, Afghanistan.

To say that now the hard part starts is a cliché, but it's also true. Truer, in fact, in the case of Obama than for most new presidents. The troubles that await him are daunting and many, foreign and domestic. The expectations that have been heaped upon him are ludicrously weighty. It's all too easy to spin scenarios in which Obama winds up humbled, broken, a failed one-term president, and trust me, there are already neurotic Democrats and vengeful Republicans churning up those dark and foreboding visions. But me, I'm thinking about a line I remember reading in 1992 — possibly crafted by the great Mike Kinsley, but I'm not sure — on the occasion of Bill Clinton's election: "Of course it will all end in tears, but today it feels great." I dunno about you, but for now I am content to go with that.

1. America's political and pundit class will go through a clinical bout of ideological amnesia.
2. The Culture Wars will be reignited.
3. Liberals and conservatives will continue to try and define everything in terms of right and left.

1. Polling
2. Fundraising
3. Media
4. Announcing for Office
5. Advertising
6. Debates
7. Voter ID
8. Get-Out-the-Vote
9. Campaign Structures
10. Candidates

Gore this ugly ox and Obama will demonstrate he is truly his own man and capable of great things.

Guns, God and gays will not disappear from our politics. But they are diminished as electoral weapons as the country confronts a new generation of disputes: global warming, mortgage meltdowns and the detention of terrorism suspects, to name a few.

This is why conservatives were so adamant about claiming a mandate in 1980 and in 2004 - they understood its critical connection to policy. This is also why Establishment voices are so adamant about downplaying a mandate today - because the empirical data from the election suggests that 2008 provided an overwhelmingly anti-Establishment mandate on everything from financial regulation, to trade, to health care to the Iraq War. If that mandate is permitted to be recognized, acknowledged and appreciated in the public debate, it might force significant policy change on those issues.

Senator Obama, who has the most liberal voting record of any current US senator, is well to the left, according to all polls, of most Americans. He is surging toward the unusual feat of being elected even though most of his countrymen are ideologically closer to his chief opponent.

This, naturally, is very good news for the Republicans, according to many pundits. It proves once again that America remains a "center-right" nation.

I think we are near a point at which America joins the rest of the west as a center-left society.

He's carved out a mandate to take America at least some distance in a leftward direction, and he has left the conservative opposition demoralized, disorganized, and arguably self-destructing.

They want some government action to solve some of these problems.

Here we are– we, the people in Grant Park; we, the people of the United States; we, the people of the world. Here we are, and none of us– not even and especially the man on the stage, the man just elected to be the 44th president– can be sure of what lies ahead.

But his manner before crowds and his face in photographs seem even farther out of reach than usual...On the night of his landslide victory over Hoover, in 1932, in the depths of the Great Depression, Roosevelt had an intimate conversation with his son James,“You know…all my life I have been afraid of only one thing—fire. Tonight I think I’m afraid of something else. I’m just afraid that I may not have the strength to do this job…I am going to pray. I am going to pray that God will help me, that he will give me the strength and the guidance to do this job and to do it right. I hope that you will pray for me, too.”

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In the last few days, I have seen remarks to the effect that “anti-Palin” conservatives are going to end up feeling foolish in the future for having doubted her qualifications, but with every passing day and each new revelation I am even more convinced that everyone who criticized her fairly on her record and statements will have no reason to feel that way.

On November 4, two thirds of voters under 30 voted for Obama. That’s the future. A large majority of voters with college educations voted for Obama. That represents the best informed segment of the electorate. So, how did everything go wrong for the Republicans?

If, as Mark Steyn says, "Any shrill vicious ad hominem invective would be much better directed at each other. The Republicans lost this election," then I am not sure why the congratulations to the Obama campaign.

You have earned the time you will spend wandering in the wilderness. The land on the other side is not a promised land. It will have to be earned, too.

In the 2000 primaries, McCain played victim to the savageries of his own party. George Bush's camp orchestrated a fallacious push poll in South Carolina suggesting that McCain had fathered an illegitimate black child. In order to raise the level of debate, McCain pulled his negative ads, lost South Carolina, and ultimately the primary.

This disastrous defeat can and will be laid at the feet of the Big Government corporate Republicans, who abandoned the Reagan Coalition, massively expanded government, and ignored the needs and values of regular, grassroots Americans. They protected Wall Street and K Street and forgot about Main Street.

Of course, there is one way in which this makes sense. McCain, it’s always seemed to me, is at heart someone who loves the idea of what the Japanese call the “noble failure.” I don’t think his campaign was noble. But his farewell was.

Bad governance is good for turnout, a fact that should give pause to people who think high rates of voting are unambiguous indicators of civic health.

As Kristol used column after column to boost Sarah Palin, suspicions built inside the campaign that Kristol and McCain staffers close to him had written off McCain and were now determined to salvage Palin as a vehicle for Republican politics in the future, possibly the Republican nomination in 2012.

Still, as her former running mate would say, the fundamentals of Sarah Palin are strong. Her conservative detractors—Colin Powell, David Brooks, and Christopher Buckley among them—were put off not by her personality but rather her lack of knowledge about certain national and foreign-policy issues. Such deficiencies can be addressed easily. Meanwhile, to use another McCainism, Palin was a surge for the ticket. Rally attendance skyrocketed. Approval ratings went up. Palin's convention speech attracted more viewers than Obama's. "I'll take it," said McCain adviser Mark Salter, looking back.

Sarah Palin's selection as John McCain's running mate redefined how vice-presidential candidates influence a campaign. Unfortunately for McCain, the Alaska governor hurt his presidential bid more than she helped.

2012 sounds so far off that can't even imagine what I'd be doing then.

Obama and his supporters decried McCain’s tactics. Yet some of the strongest criticism came from people whom McCain revered or who had long revered him. And it was not merely about strategy—the backbiting that always consumes losing campaigns. It was about the very nature of John McCain. In their eyes, at least, their hero was losing not only an election but his reputation—or, as one prominent backer put it, “his soul.”

(1) Oppose Obama, Not America
(2) No Chicken-Hawking
(3) Don't Question The Verdict
(4) Don't Blame The Voters
(5) Don't Get Mad, Get Even
(6) We Play For 2010, Not 2012
(7) Prioritize
(8) Watch Your Budget
(9) Grow A Thick Hide and Get Your Taxes in Order
(10) Buy More Life Insurance
(11) Pray
(12) Get On Living

So take today and rest. I can’t blame you. In the mean time I will stand watch on the front. I will fight the fight while you re-energize. I’ll still be here when you come back. And when you do come back, you can stand on either hand and continue to keep this bridge with me. I’ll rest when I’m dead. At RedState, we fight on.

Mr. Bush has endured relentless attacks from the left while facing abandonment from the right. This is the price Mr. Bush is paying for trying to work with both Democrats and Republicans. During his 2004 victory speech, the president reached out to voters who supported his opponent, John Kerry, and said, "Today, I want to speak to every person who voted for my opponent. To make this nation stronger and better, I will need your support, and I will work to earn it. I will do all I can do to deserve your trust."

And attacks on Bush gave aid and comfort to his enemies — unlike the firehose of abuse that will be directed against President Obama, which will of course be an expression of true patriotism.

Pinning the GOP loss on the harsh environment and economic crisis…In the party-line version of history, it was the latter that ultimately dashed McCain's White House hopes.

During this time of transition, I will keep the president-elect fully informed on important decisions.

"In four years, you're not going to recognize this country," said John Torgan, 63, a retired military bombmaker. "I've spent half my life in the military. This is not good. (Obama) comes from the cesspool we call Chicago."

But after booing Obama's name and offering a few jeers, the crowd came to recognize the history in the evening when McCain paid tribute to the nation's first black president by recalling his own favorite commander-in-chief.

The speech also evoked a constant theme of McCain's life, his absolute conviction in his own personal fortune, a run of luck that allowed him to survive five and a half years of imprisonment in Vietnam, multiple cancer scares, and repeated brushes with death as a U.S. Navy fighter pilot. "I have always been a fortunate man," he said.

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Barack Obama earned his ticket to the Oval Office by running a technically near-flawless campaign, dominating three debates and picking a vice president, Joe Biden, worthy of the office. It was, of course, Ronald Reagan's slogan, but as the sun comes up Wednesday on a land that has dramatically turned away from the Bush-Cheney years, it will feel for tens of millions like "morning in America.

The scale of Obama's campaign reached massive proportions. By Election Day, for example, it was asking its cadres of volunteers to make a million phone calls to get out the vote.

The aftermath taught them that they could take on the dreaded Clinton machine—“the most impressive, toughest, most ruthless war room in the world,” as Pfeiffer put it. “It was like we had taken our first punch and kept on going,” he said.

The Cosby Show,” which began on NBC in 1984 and depicted the Huxtables, an upwardly mobile black family — a departure from the dysfunction and bickering that had characterized some previous shows about black families — had succeeded in changing racial attitudes enough to make an Obama candidacy possible.

As grand as the symbolism of Obama’s victory was, it was also a victory for his steady, corporate campaign management. The campaign’s early decision to play on a more ambitious map than other Democratic nominees was the source of his mandate. And the result closely mirrored the PowerPoint presentation his campaign manager, David Plouffe, pitched to sometimes-skeptical audiences of reporters and donors.

He could be ironic, detached, and highly self-aware one minute; completely earnest and inspirational the next.

We believe that the best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard working very patriotic, um, very, um, pro-America areas of this great nation. This is where we find the kindness and the goodness and the courage of everyday Americans. Those who are running our factories and teaching our kids and growing our food and are fighting our wars for us. Those who are protecting us in uniform. Those who are protecting the virtues of freedom.

We did it. Well, YOU did it. I couldn’t vote, but I shamed people into it, dragged them to the polls, and was a pain in the ass to a lot of people (including, by the way, a couple black people in my office who didn’t think their votes would make a difference in Georgia!) Hopefully, I did my part, too.

Obama won among every age group except for voters 65 and over.

The failure of the administration of George W. Bush — and the accompanying crisis of the Republican Party — has caused a political meltdown of historic proportions. In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11th, Bush enjoyed the greatest popularity ever recorded for a modern American president. Republicans on Capitol Hill, under the iron rule of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, fattened their coffers through a fearsome operation overseen by corporate lobbyists and GOP henchmen that functioned more like an empire than an old-fashioned political machine. "Republican hegemony," the prominent conservative commentator Fred Barnes rejoiced in 2004, "is now expected to last for years, maybe decades."

Fired with political idealism, he decided to become a community organizer. He wrote to organizations all over the United States, and finally got one reply, from Chicago. He moved there, going to work for a tiny, church-based group that was trying to help residents of poor South Side neighborhoods cope with a wave of plant closings.

What nobody could know then was whether Obama had the stamina, timing, and simple dumb luck to arrive safely where he now has. I don’t believe that we as a country would have been ready to elect our first African-American President except in very unusual circumstances. Unfortunately, those circumstances were duly provided by a calamitous Republican Presidency and, now, by an economic crisis of terrifying depth. The challenges Obama will inherit necessarily shadow today’s celebrations. Still, it’s a great, great moment in America, and it’s not bad juju to say so.

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By 10 pm. Eastern, newspaper editors could put crisp, definitive headlines atop their front pages. Some European newspapers managed the same, either by way of special editions or the quaint tradition of afternoon publishing.

The Wednesday edition of the Times was very popular. It was sold out all over the city so people lined up outside the Times' building to buy copies. Copies are available on eBay for $100 or more.

'It's an interesting vote of confidence for print,' said Meacham. 'If you want to hold onto something for commemorative purposes, you can't hold onto a Web page.'

If history records a sudden surge in carbon emissions on Wednesday, it may be due to the collective exhalation of relief and joy by the hundreds of millions -- perhaps billions -- of people around the globe who watched, waited and prayed for Barack Obama to be elected president of the United States.

Many around the world grabbed the news of Obama's win as a sign that the United States was on the verge of a historic turning point, politically and socially.

At Moneygall's Hayes Bar, an American flag fluttered and local band Hardy Drew and the Nancy Boys played their rousing folk song "There's No One as Irish as Barack Obama."

Today, reality in America has superseded fantasy. ... Americans have struck a deadly blow to racism all over the world. Americans have regained themselves and have regained the American dream. The picture of the U.S. that was disfigured by the Republicans in the past eight years fell from the wall today. The picture of the America we had in our minds has taken its place." - Prominent Saudi columnist Dawood al-Shirian.

The headline on Germany's Bild said, "Good Morning Mr. President — Make the World Better!" and Le Figaro led with "The World Salutes Obama's Victory."

One other thing: this is a country whose President-elect's middle name is Hussein. That is a fact to be celebrated. I received an email from a young friend, an entrepreneur in Kabul, this morning. He said, "We are all smiling now," and he attached a Pakistani press clipping--the Taliban greeted the new President and said they were ready to commence talks.

I was surprised by the largely pro-Obama turnout, especially with Democrats Abroad and the very active Americans in China for Obama group also hosting functions. I tried to find similar Republican events in town but could not. "It's always this way," a Republicans Abroad officer from Hong Kong told me by email.

Across the globe, people in city squares and villages, living rooms and shacks cheered his success, boosting hopes that America's first black commander-in-chief might herald a more conciliatory approach to the rest of the world.

Non-Americans must also brace for disappointment. America will certainly change under Mr Obama; the world of extraordinary rendition and licensed torture should thankfully soon be gone. But America will, as it must, continue to put its own interests, and those of its allies, first. Withdrawing from Iraq will be harder than Mr Obama’s supporters hope; the war in Afghanistan will demand more sacrifices from Americans and Europeans than he has yet prepared them for. The problems of the Middle East will hardly be solved overnight. Getting a climate-change bill through Congress will be hard.

Tristram Hunt, a British historian, put it this way: Mr. Obama “brings the narrative that everyone wants to return to — that America is the land of extraordinary opportunity and possibility, where miracles happen.

There are still a lot of mixed-up, terrified people out there who went to bed last night in a panic about what "those people" will do now that they have one of their own in the White House. When I finally got to watch a replay of Obama's speech in my hotel room late last night, it occurred to me that it's those people who were actually the big winners in this election. Why? Because a lot of them are going to wake up a year from now and realize not a whole lot has changed. And quietly, when no one's looking, they're going to relax a little.

It may no longer be as dominant, economically or diplomatically, as it once was. But it is younger, more optimistic, less cynical. It is a country that retains its ability to startle the world — and in a good way, with our freedom. It is a place, finally, where the content of our President's character is more important than the color of his skin.

I would advise you to remember that you did not create the disaster that the world is experiencing, and you alone are not responsible for bringing the world back to balance.

5. I hereby order that "mandate" immediately be stricken from all the dictionaries and vocabularies of every Democrat in the country. That dirty word has no place in a democracy. That said, feel free to use the phrase, "Wow, we kicked some ass."

My colleagues and I laughed and shouted, whooped and hollered, hugged each other and cried. My father waited 95 years to see this day happen, and when he called as results came in, I silently thanked God for allowing him to live long enough to cast his vote for the first black man to become president. And even he still can't quite believe it!

But a smiling picture of the Secretary on the wall of the VA building isn't going to make a difference alone. Here are the three critical policies veterans need to see from the new President in his first 100 days:
1. Advance-Fund VA Health Care
2. Implement GI Bill Transferability
3. Issue a National Call for Mental Health Experts--and back it up with incentives

Strict military rules that keep partisan debates private could not hide many soldiers' intense interest in Tuesday's election.

For many of the soldiers who've spent the last year deployed, the campaign has not nearly been as high-profile as it's been for those of us on the home front. Soldiers I spoke to in Iraq this summer cited their long work hours and sometimes spotty Internet access as hampering their abilities to follow politics. If those of us at home now have some idea of who the real Barack Obama is, they may not -- but their lives may depend his actions as president.

It is a wonderful thing to have the first African-American president. It is a wonderful thing that in a country where feelings are so intense that power can be transferred so peacefully.

Many across the country said they realize that the election of a single man does not obliterate the complex tensions of race, let alone the myriad problems facing the country.

This kind of conservatism, which is not conservative at all, has produced financial mismanagement, the waste of human lives, the loss of moral authority, and the wreckage of our economy that McCain now threatens to make worse.

Obama will be the first to tell you that he ain't no Jesus, black or otherwise. But tonight, we say without snark: we feel hopeful.

It is here, though, that Obama, at least for one night, was at his most gracious. He addressed himself directly to us — to conservatives and other skeptical Americans who opposed him, often stridently...Which is right? We don’t know, or at least I certainly don’t know. But I admit to worrying.

P.S. With the election done and another novel deadline approaching, I'm going to try hard to get my blogging addiction a little more under control. We'll see if my efforts are successful.

Bush did not make a serious effort to unite the country. Nor has he seemed particularly conscious of this failure…Instead, as he told me once, "I'm a results-oriented kind of guy." Well, the results are in. America is far more divided now than when Bush first took office. He now maintains that divisiveness is the residue of a leader making tough decisions for the future benefit of the country. George W. Bush wouldn't have bought that line of reasoning in 2000, and most of us don't buy it now.

Suddenly it makes sense, what you've been trying to tell us about John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. Sure, we knew all about their roles in history, we'd learned about them in a million classes, through countless books and documentaries. Eventually, though, the endless memorials and tributes and TV specials and Oliver Stone films grew a little tedious. We didn't quite understand why you've never let those two go, why you'd speak so relentlessly about a better time…And in 15 years, our kids probably won't understand it when we talk about the night that Obama was elected president, either. They'll sigh deeply and roll their eyes and say they've heard this story a million times before, so please shut up about it already. They'll purse their lips and think about how our hair looks stupid and we smell like old cheese.

I belong to what has sometimes been called “the Greatest Generation.” If most of us have felt uncomfortable about the honor, it may be because we’ve known that in some ways we haven’t been all that great. The election of Barack Obama as President could mean that all of us in the United States belong to the Greatest Generation now, and though this astounding event seems to have happened all of a sudden, for some people my age it wasn’t soon enough.

If Barack Obama wins the presidency tonight, as seems very likely, what should conservatives fear most about his administration?

The indelible memory from last night, for me, will always be the First Family-elect, resplendent in black and red, walking almost a little shyly onstage, as if it was just then dawning on them what has happened, and waving to the delirious tens of thousands in Grant Park. And my son will grow up not thinking it remarkable to have a black family in the White House.

Court watchers almost unanimously believe that those first two Justices -- John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsberg -- are certain to leave the court at some point over the next four years, while the third -- David Souter -- is highly likely to do so. To understand why that matters so much, just consider that all three of those justices were in very precarious, narrow majorities in crucial decisions.

The final president of a republic tends to be a failed, despised figure. The First Republic, which began with George Washington, ended with James Buchanan, a hapless president who refused to act as the South seceded after Lincoln's election. The Second Republic, which began with Abraham Lincoln, ended with the well-meaning but reviled and ineffectual Herbert Hoover. The Third Republic, founded by Franklin Roosevelt, came to a miserable end under the pathetic George W. Bush.

Martin Luther King, Jr., who helped start the campaign that made this possible, used to note progress in Birmingham by telling supporters of a former slave who once said: “We ain’t what ought to be, and we ain’t what we want to be and we ain’t what we’re going to be. But thank God, we ain’t what we was.” That’s a useful assessment of the nation’s progress as well.

It means the 9/11 era -- of dealing with the world 9/11 created rather than using 9/11 as a political club -- has finally begun. -Brad DeLong

As someone who both strongly advocated for Obama in the primary and general election, and also questioned him on some of his policy positions, I think that (despite the naysaying of some partisans) support and pressure can be as complimentary as the carrot and stick. Indeed, I think real movements and concrete change come only with both. Yet, I also believe that we should make sure the pressure we harness is the kind that assumes that Obama is at minimum trying to act in good faith for progressive goals, at least until he gives us clear reason to believe otherwise.

That, for me, was D.C. last night. Of course the dynamics of wealth and privilege that define the city are still intact. But for one night the people holding open the doors were a hell of a lot happier than the ones walking through them.

Now we have a snark-break hangover.

It’s simple. Having an elected black President will do more to energize this country than any economic or social policy ever could. In a single day of voting, our amazing country once again reinvigorated the dream that any child in this country, no matter what circumstances they are born into, can grow up to be anything they want, including President of the United States.

It starts for me with Bush's approval rating. You run the country with breathtaking incompetence for eight years; you defy the constitution and the Geneva Conventions; you let an entire city drown; you fail to ask for an inch of sacrifice from the rich during the greatest concentration of wealth in our country's history. You do all those things, and it turns out the American people pay attention: you become the least popular president since the invention of polling.

One bright light in the marquee is Michelle Obama, that witty, jumpy woman with the quicksilver smile.

Like everyone else, I was unimpressed by the Election Night dress -- possibly just because the cardigan threw off the look. (However, having been in Grant Park Tuesday night, I can't blame her for that. Beautiful as the weather was for the time of year, I was happy to have my fleece after the sun went down. And I can admire practical sartorial choices as much as daring ones -- which might be why Hillary's pantsuits never bothered me.)” Michele is smart and people like her clothes.

Perhaps history itself demanded that we pass through the pain and humiliation of the Bush era in order to merit the relief granted by this election. We have been forced to suffer through the most vile of administrations, one that has shown total disdain for the Constitution, for the rule of law, for basic humanity. And this is the second most important takeaway from the election. After nearly three decades in which the power structure pandered to, exploited, refined and capitalized on all the worst of our collective base instincts, along comes a candidate who speaks only to our most humane and compassionate side. That says something striking about Barack Obama. And it says even more about the American people. It’s one more victory we shouldn’t hesitate to claim.

But in general, the Fox team displayed an oddly jolly professionalism. They seemed determined to take their medicine, with the stick-to-itiveness of a losing football team dreaming of bright days far in the future or the past (and the near certainty that their core audience was going to bed, by the millions, in despair). Though it went briefly wobbly on Ohio, Fox didn't really show any particular reluctance to call states for Obama, and after New Hampshire (at 8:11) and Pennsylvania (at 8:30), its commentators quit pretending there was any serious doubt about the outcome and began arguing about what kind of president Obama would be -- and what kind of country he was inheriting from you-know-who.

Because all Americans, white and black, liberal and conservative, are brought up to believe that their country is different, special, the "greatest nation on earth," a "city on a hill." We are all taught that our system is just, our laws are fair, our Constitution is something to be proud of. Lately, though, this self-image has taken a battering. We are fighting two wars, neither with remarkable success. We have just experienced a cataclysmic financial crisis. We are about to enter a recession. We are unloved around the world, and we know it. Electing our first black president won't by itself solve any of these problems, but—to use the pop-psychological language for which Americans are justly famous—it sure makes us feel good about ourselves. That hysteria you saw on television in Chicago was, yes, partly about the return of the Democrats and partly about the passing of George Bush. As the rain-on-the-parade dispensers of sour grapes are already writing, it was absolutely about ideology, too. But it was also about relief: We really are a land of opportunity!

Barack Obama’s decisive defeat of John McCain is the most important victory of a Democratic candidate since 1932. It brings to a close another conservative era, one that rose amid the ashes of the New Deal coalition in the late sixties, consolidated its power with the election of Ronald Reagan, in 1980, and immolated itself during the Presidency of George W. Bush.

Obama's commitment to changing the narrative of American cities is critical to our nation's success.

Obama, something of a re-founding father, now joins the pantheon of white men who have cast a bright light or negative shadow over the nation's political landscape. His interpretation of America's ideals and destiny will enliven the creeds that have shaped the nation's self-image.

No matter who you voted for, no matter how you feel about Barack Obama, this is a day to celebrate our country's soul.

And then, of course, there's the fact that Obama has just been elected President of a nation in which he could have been bought and sold as a slave just seven generations ago. I don't think there are any words adequate to the occasion of America electing its first black President, so I'll just say this: This may be a bleak day for the Republican Party and for conservatism, but come what may in the years ahead, it's a great day for our country. Barack Obama deserves congratulations, tonight, but so does the nation he's about to govern: We've come a long, long way.

It is now possible for young people of color to aspire to the highest goals attainable in American society -- a truly remarkable development.

The past eight years showed us that this is not the best America can be. Now we can finally throw the bums out and move in a different direction.

Meanwhile, Mr. President-elect, my warmest congratulations. You make me—this is absurd, my eyes are watering—proud to be an American.

Still, the whispers that Barack had this thing in the bag made people more socially adventurous tonight—at least in New York. The question became not whether O would clinch it, but where exactly you would be when he did—because if you're going to be telling the story to your grandchildren anyways, it would be nice if the details involved celebrities or champagne (or at least someone to make out with).

But in his unabashed belief in education over glorified ignorance, in wisdom over warmongering, in humanism over denominational hubris, in effort over expedience, and in service over self-interest Barack Obama is the first president in my lifetime who resembles me and the people I know.

The greatest thing we can do now, those of us who support Obama, is hold him to the same standards to which we held Bush.

I don't think I'm overstating it when I say that today, I feel like America has dodged a bullet.

And I had read his first book. I was astonished by his ability to write, to think, to reflect, to learn and turn a good phrase. I was very impressed. This was not a normal political biography.

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Possibly related posts:

1. Comprehensive Election Reactions Round Up – A Reference
2. Comprehensive Election Reactions Round Up – A Reference – Wins
3. Comprehensive Election Reactions Round Up – A Reference – Winners and Losers

But a 64% turnout rate is a very big deal. According to this Wiki entry, turnout four years ago was about 56%, and that was considered a pretty good year. More notably, turnout was 63% in the Kennedy-Nixon race in 1960, and that was the high watermark of the modern political era.” 130 million people voted, 64% of voting age population.

Youth voters in California were the only demographic to vote against the unAmerican Proposition 8, which means the foes of equal rights are going to lose in the long run...Moreover, maybe young people will be able to educate or shame their elders into wising up in this matter.

Young voters diverged sharply from the population as a whole, preferring Obama/Biden over McCain/Palin by 66% to 32% in the NEP. This is by far the highest share of the youth vote obtained by any candidate... Thanks to George W. Bush, who crystallized the effect of conservatism on this country, there's a whole generation of truly progressive voters out there.

18 percent times a 25 percent increase in the Democratic margin equals 4.5 points, or a majority of Obama's popular vote margin. Had the Democratic 18-29 vote stayed the same as 2004's already impressive percentage, Obama would have won by about 2 points, and would not have won 73 electoral votes from Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, or Indiana.

Thankfully, all the decisive states in 2008 were won by large enough margins that no-one will attribute the outcome to possible voter registration fraud perpetrated by groups like ACORN. But that might not be the case next time. Can we agree we should solve this problem with effective protections against voter registration and voter fraud before a scandal tangles up a future election?

I realized at some point that all of the currently reported problems--the vote-flipping, the long lines, the lack of audit trails, the security problems, the indifference (and, in some cases, belligerent incompetence) of local elections officials--are simply repeats of elections and primaries past. I could drag out ten or so articles from the 2002 midterms through the primaries of 2008, change only the dates, and we'd have a pretty good description of the present problems with early voting in this election.

Many of the states that allowed early voting this year experienced few delays on Election Day, and now federal election officials, lawmakers and voting experts say people in every state should have the same privilege.

Democrats have won the popular vote in 4 of the last 5 presidential elections.
Democrats have won the presidency in 3 of the last 5 presidential elections.
Democrats have increased their popular vote total in 7 of the last 7 presidential elections, while Republicans have done so in just 3 elections, staying flat once, and dropping 3 times.

To keep things moving they were directing people to the attached men's and women's bathroom to fill in their ballot. So I filled in my ballot in a bathroom sitting on the can. It was great to see that kind of voter turnout.

My husband’s former father-in-law, a truly horrid little man who uses the “N” word with regularity and a forceful commitment to every nasty thing it represents, pulled the lever a few hours ago, in a dingy, struggling town in West Virginia…for Barack Obama. Just something to feel a little bit in awe of as you sip your cocktail and wonder if tonight is going to be what we hope it will be.

It was clear very quickly that he could not read. She helped him to make his choices. I couldn’t help but overhear who was his choice. It was a great thing to see that he was so determined to vote.

A dark reminder for me of my family's past, she still has receipts for slaves that our family owned. My grandmother has voted Republican her entire life, but today she voted for Barack Obama.

My daughters are 13 and 15 like Obama’s and I wonder if they will ever understand what happened back then and what today means. Maybe they won’t and maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe it’s even the point.

She arrived at her polling place on a gurney in an ambulance, where an election judge and support worker climbed aboard with an electronic voting machine and let her cast her ballot.

This was one of 7 sites open in the county for early voting last week. I drove past it last Friday thinking that, perhaps on the afternoon of Halloween the line would be short. It wrapped around the parking lot like one of those terrible Atlanta airport security checkpoint lines. So I waited to vote until today.

Mr. Silver recognized that people wanted to play politics like they played fantasy baseball, and pick apart poll numbers for themselves instead of waiting for an evening news anchor to interpret polls for them.

It's another victory for sabermetrics, or at least the political equivalent.

The only state their model got wrong was Indiana, where they expected a narrow Obama loss. He won the state by a hair. Nate Silver owned this election on the polling front: one young guy with a background in baseball stats beat out the mainstream media in a couple of months. And he beat out the old web: I mean if you consider the total joke of Drudge's recent coverage and compare it with Silver's, you realize that the web is a brutal competitive medium where only the best survive - and they are only as good as their last few posts.

This uncanny accuracy is the equivalent of dropping a penny from the top of a 50 story building and landing it in a shot glass. And not one of those double-shot sized ones, either.

We have plans to use our Flash charts to display a wider variety of poll data, including Barack Obama's favorable rating and, of course, his job rating as President once he takes office. We are also looking forward to tracking what both the "basic trends" that Charles Franklin charted earlier this week and the reactions that Pollsters will gather to the initiatives of the new Obama administration. Look for new charts and new data coming soon.

1. Exit polls have a much larger intrinsic margin for error than regular polls.
2. Exit polls have consistently overstated the Democratic share of the vote.
3. Exit polls were particularly bad in this year's primaries.
4. Exit polls challenge the definition of a random sample.
5. Democrats may be more likely to participate in exit polls.
6. Exit polls may have problems calibrating results from early voting.
7. Exit polls may also miss late voters.
8. "Leaked" exit poll results may not be the genuine article.
9. A high-turnout election may make demographic weighting difficult.
10. You'll know the actual results soon enough anyway.

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Possibly related posts:

1. Comprehensive Election Reactions Round Up – A Reference – Winners and Losers
2. Comprehensive Election Reactions Round Up – A Reference
3. Comprehensive Election Reactions Round Up – A Reference – Race

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Possibly related posts:

1. Comprehensive Election Reactions Round Up – A Reference
2. Comprehensive Election Reactions Round Up – A Reference – Wins
3. Comprehensive Election Reactions Round Up – A Reference – Money and Business

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Possibly related posts:

1. Comprehensive Election Reactions Round Up – A Reference – Winners and Losers
2. Comprehensive Election Reactions Round Up – A Reference
3. Comprehensive Election Reactions Round Up – A Reference – Money and Business